Brave What's Inside of Me
by pastelkhaleesi
Summary: Breaking out from a family of criminals and joining The Team while battling her own demons of depression and anxiety: a darker, more realistic version of Artemis Crock. TRIGGER WARNING


**Hi my babies! Welcome to a new story I'm writing to occupy me during the iZombie hiatus. I'm currently working on an explosive chapter to sum up the last few episodes of that. I plan to resume the story when the show returns in the fall, though I may post a few chapters here and there. Back to this story though, I've been wanting to do a Spitfire one forever now, like, since the show began (and ended).**

 **Like every story I write, I have to have real life people as each character to play out my scenarios in my mind. For this one, my headcannon Artemis Crock is obviously Dianna Agron. I know that's not the most racially correct headcannon, but ftw, right? I just thought I'd mention that to validate the cover image.**

 **This story also takes place in present time, rather than back in like 2011 when the show actually started. It just makes it easier for me to write. Screw the timeline!**

 **This is going to be a bit darker than the kind of fluffy stuff I usually write, even though this is still centered around my otp. There's going to be a lot of stuff about depression and anxiety as well as abusive family relationships, so if any of these serve as triggers for you, click away now.**

 **Still here? Ok, Enjoy!**

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Chapter 1: Echoes

 _Artemis' POV_

Sometimes it just hurt . . . and it wouldn't go away. Not the bruises and scabs from all the wounds, but the emotional toll. It was as if Daddy just hit Mommy at the dinner table and everyone's trying to eat still. That kind of ringing silence that seems to weigh more than anything else. It's not fun, you know, feeling like that all the time.

My family can't even all stay in the same room with each other, let alone sit at the kitchen table for a meal. It was tough, but I'd endured sixteen years of a life like this. It hadn't gotten any better. I had no one in this god-forsaken household who gave a single shit about me.

When I thought back to a few short hours ago when I came home to my drunken father in a fight with mom. I witnessed him smack her several times and cut her with a bottle opener across the face. She just sat there in her wheelchair and took it; she knew that trying to fight would only make things worse. I felt my anxiety flare up and I drew an emotional blank. I ran to the kitchen and threw myself down on the ground with a knife in hand. Fortunately he didn't see me. I waited for what seemed like an eternity under the kitchen table. I absolutely hated the sound of my mom crying.

My head was spinning faster and faster as I heard the front door being kicked in and the windows shatter. A man dressed in all black stormed through the front door. I shut my eyes and opened them again. My eyes were correct, it was the Batman. That was all I remember before waking up.

When I woke up, there were tons of medics around me and mom was being wheeled off to the hospital for the injuries she suffered as a result of dad. After everyone left, I took my 60 milligrams of Prozac and went to bed. And there I was. My tired eyes looking around the bedroom idly as I try to fall asleep on what appeared to be a sleepless night.

That's when I noticed it - a torn piece of paper taped up on the wall at the corner of my Alice in Wonderland poster. It was out of place . . . lonely like me. I knew I hadn't put it there. Sighing, I got up and walked over to it.

"7459 N. Sunwood Blvd" it read. I read it over and over again. I didn't know this address, that I was sure of. _Jade. Yep, that's probably it._ She would come in through the windows every so often and leave me little notes. I thought it was strange that I didn't hear her, but I didn't think too much about it. Taping the piece of paper back up on the wall, I glanced at the clock, which read 3:45. How long had I been laying there? I looked out my window to the quiet streets of this little poor neighborhood in Gotham City. I looked back at the piece of paper on my wall and then back out to the ghost town of a neighborhood.

Within a few short moments I was climbing out the window of my 6th story apartment. I jumped from building to building with the parkour skills of an American Ninja Warrior contestant. _I guess all that training came in handy..._

There was not a car on the street, no lights on in any windows except for the cheap motel down the street. I repeated the address in my mind as I ran. _7459 North Sunwood Boulevard, 7459 North Sunwood Boulevard, 7459 North Sunwood Boulevard . . ._

With the street signs as my guide, I eventually found the place . . . or at least where it was supposed to be. I had ran miles out to the suburbs of Gotham to Mount Justice. That damn piece of paper led me to a mountain. I thought it would've been like a psychiatric center or something that made sense like that. Nope, it was just a stupid mountain. I decided to explore anyway.

I walked through the foliage of overgrown thickets of overgrown ivy around the base. It was extremely muddy; as if my flip flops hadn't been through enough already that night. I found a shallow cave facing the beach. Strangely, there weren't any plants in front of the sheltered area, as if it were a path of some sort. I leaned against the back of the cave and looked up at the ceiling. I was wondering what the hell I was doing with my life when suddenly a bright light, sort of like a camera flash, blinded me. I flinched, and the wall behind me dissipated. I fell on my butt.

"Artemis, B07" said a female robotic voice above me.

"So you've decided to join us."

It was the deep voice of an older man and it sure as hell caught me off guard (as is everything else didn't). I turned quickly to see who it was. There was no mistaking it; it was the Batman. "Join you?" I asked. He nodded. "A little bat told me you feel as though you have nothing to live for." Well, he wasn't wrong.

"You will be part of a covert operation group to be referred to as The Team; the younger counterpart to the Justice League." He said as he turned and began to walk away. I followed him. "For your own privacy you may pose as Oliver Queen's niece."

"Oliver Queen?" I asked.

"Green Arrow" Batman promptly clarified. "Within a few days time, time spent training and working out the kinks of your new superhero alias, you will be officially part of the Team." Well, okay then. I found it weird that Batman was super forward about everything, but what did I have to lose by trusting him?


End file.
